


Touched The Distant Sands

by silvain



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Clones, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Multi, Post Episode: s04e12 A New Man, Ripper has lost everything, magical clone/timetravel weirdness, time travel- sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4124412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvain/pseuds/silvain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do when you find a younger version of your Watcher on your doorstep? Well, whatever he needs, at first.</p><p>In which Ethan accidentally clones a younger Giles with a spell gone wrong, and it's up to Buffy to put the pieces of young Ripper's broken heart back together. (She just doesn't know it yet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touched The Distant Sands

**Author's Note:**

> If you've gotten this far, you're trusting me a lot more than I expected, so thank you. I promise to do my best to make this story good.
> 
> Here is what you need to know- This takes place sometime after A New Man, but before the end of season four. A lot of Ethan's characterization is influenced by my headcanons about his background and relationship with Ripper. (It's... a pretty angsty headcanon.)
> 
> I know almost nothing about the comics, and am entirely ignoring them for this fic.
> 
> There will be other characters later, tagged as they show up. There may be other ships, tagged when they show up. I'm still deciding whether this is Ripper/Buffy or Ripper/Buffy/Spike, but Spike has a role, eventually, regardless, because I love him and think his interactions with Ripper will be fascinating.
> 
> Ethan and Giles will have a good deal of screentime together, too- there's too much to mine for angst there, and Ethan is too invested in what he's done to leave, so I promise that's going somewhere. Whether it's leading to reconciliation or not, I refuse to say just yet, but it's going _somewhere_. ;)
> 
> The rating may change. (It probably will.)
> 
> Unbeta'd, as I am bad at finding a beta.

There was a sharp flash of light, and Ethan scrambled back from where he'd been sitting to cast, swearing under his breath. This was _not_ what he'd been aiming for. It was just supposed to be a simple transformation spell on Ripper- again, which was probably poor judgement on his part, but this was a rather less unkind transformation than the last, after all. Wouldn't want to reward Ripper's help in his escape from those soldier boys with more viciousness, after all. He _definitely_ hadn’t been aiming to summon a twenty year old… “ _Fuck_ ,” he muttered, as he realized who the young man lying unconscious in front of him appeared to be. “Well, Ripper… looks like I got what I was aiming for after all.”

He ran through some basic magical checks- making sure he hadn’t accidentally performed time travel instead (which would be particularly bad, but also highly unlikely, given his own memory seemed intact, though it occurred to him he might not notice if it weren’t), making sure the transformation was stable, which it was, and lastly, attempting to determine how in the world he’d summoned Ripper when he only meant to transform him. That last one was the hardest to make sense of- everything he attempted suggested that, in fact, he _hadn’t_ , and that Ripper was still at home, neither moved from where he’d been an hour ago nor changed in any way.

Finally, Ethan double-checked his spell preparations, and found two things slightly out of place- one of which was meant to keep his subconscious wishes from taking control of the spell. The other was used for temporal focus, a necessity for deaging spells. Between the two factors, he was developing a fairly good idea of what he’d done wrong- this wasn’t Ripper, precisely, in front of him. It was, in a sense, a clone, a precise duplicate of the moment he’d meant to turn Ripper’s age back to. A moment for which Ethan had a great deal of longing and nostalgia, despite all attempts not to in the intervening years. A moment in which two young men, barely grown and best of friends, had enjoyed life to the fullest- sex, drugs, rock-and-roll… and magic. A moment which, given the choice (and the ability- he’d never stumbled upon a spell that could do so), he would gladly lock his mind into, experiencing nothing else.

Ethan did not deny he had rather a good deal of issues. Or that most of them could be traced back to one Rupert Giles, for that matter. Well, alright, he’d deny it if most people _asked_ , but he didn’t deny it to himself, at least. Which was both close enough and entirely irrelevant to his current issue, that being the unconscious probably-clone of his old friend, and precisely what he was going to do about said clone.

Really, his best bet was to take young Ripper there and get out of town before something _else_ went wrong… but if he was wrong about what had happened, and left town with an unconscious, deaged Rupert Giles, he was as good as dead. And it would inevitably go badly- whether this was a duplicate or the original- if he simply left the young man there while he went to confirm that Ripper was at home in person. And waiting for him to wake up… would also inevitably go badly, given the original would simply attack him, and a duplicate wouldn’t trust him at best.

Which left him, unfortunately, with little choice but to seek help, loath though he was to admit it, from the Slayer and her friends.

\-------------------------  
“Buffy? You may want to come see this…” Willow pointed out, as they headed past Buffy’s mother’s house on patrol. Willow had suggested they stop in, as it was still fairly early, and gone ahead to knock while Buffy and Xander checked a sound several feet away.

“Probably just a cat, Buff,” Xander shrugged, as the pair of them headed to see what had Willow sounding so confused.

Buffy paused, taking in the scene before her. Willow was crouching next to a guy about their age, who was lying on the front porch in a scruffy t-shirt, faded jeans, and a pretty cool-looking leather jacket, his jaw-length hair partially obscuring his face. “Is he breathing?” At Willow’s nod, she continued, “Okay… so why is there an unconscious guy on the front steps? …With a note taped to his jacket?”

“Maybe the note will tell us?” Willow suggested.

“Good point,” Buffy replied, crouching down near the guy and taking the note, reading it aloud. It was addressed to the Slayer, and claimed the young man was a duplicate of young Rupert Giles, accidentally created by a spell gone wrong. It was signed ‘Ethan Rayne’.

“I thought you said the Initiative took him?” Xander pointed out. “After he turned Giles into that demon thingy.”

“They did. He must’ve gotten away somehow.”

“Not really surprising, he’s kind of slippery,” Willow said.

“And now he’s… magically cloning young hot Giles and leaving him on my front porch? Weird, even for him,” Buffy replied. This was definitely not how she'd wanted to spend her Friday night- she'd been aiming for a quick patrol and then some time with her mom, since she hadn't been able to spend much time at home lately.

“Also weird? You calling Giles hot.”

“Shut up, Xand.”

“Maybe we should get him inside?” Willow suggested. Buffy nodded, lifting him carefully while Willow got the door, calling out to reassure Buffy’s mother before opening it.

“Willow? Buffy..? Oh, no! What happened? Who’s this?”

“Long story, Mom. Short version is, magic did a thing that made a sort of clone and he’s Giles but also not. Probably,” Buffy explained, settling the duplicate onto the couch as comfortably as she could manage. “We can’t be sure until he wakes up, since he was apparently left here by Ethan Rayne.”

“One of us should stay here until he wakes up… and someone should probably find Ethan,” Willow pointed out.

“Yeah, I think- hang on, the note has a PS. He’s apparently ‘explaining to Rupert before he finds out on his own’. I think he thinks that’ll keep him from getting his butt kicked,” Buffy said.

“Okay,” Xander replied, “so let’s wait here until the clone or whatever wakes up. And if Giles hasn’t come by or called us by then, we’ll go looking for Ethan then?”

“Good idea,” Buffy answered. She paused for a moment, then added, “Better idea- I stay here, you guys go make sure Giles doesn’t kill Ethan, but let them talk if they’re talking, okay? Let Ethan explain or say whatever he’s going to say to Giles. No need to rush back over here.”

“Why not?” Willow asked.

“Honestly? Mostly because if this is young Giles, he probably shouldn’t wake up to his older self beating up Ethan.” She found a chair to pull close to the couch, and sat down to keep an eye on the man lying there. “I’ll call if he wakes up before you guys get back here.”

\-------------------------  
Ripper jolted awake on an unfamiliar couch, with a pretty blond staring at him and no clue whatsoever of where he was. The last he remembered, he’d been curled up, naked and sated, with Ethan, Randall, and Deirdre one night in his flat (their flat, their little gang), and this was clearly neither his bed nor his flat.

“Where-” he began, trying to sit up. He felt horribly exhausted for some reason, most likely whatever had done such a number on his memory that he didn’t know how he got where he was.

“Um. Long story,” the blond said, “but I can promise you you’re safe and explanations are going to happen… probably.” She paused, then added, “Ethan asked us to keep an eye on you.”

“Didn’t know he had any other friends he’d trust that much,” he replied.

“Trust, yes, friends, not exactly. It’s complicated,” she replied. “I’m Buffy, by the way.”

He grinned at her, aiming for charming (and probably only managing adorable, but he could work with that). “Nice to meet you.” He paused, then asked, “Where is my favorite pain in the ass best mate, anyway?”

“Um. Also a long story. Probably I should explain before you see him, actually…” Buffy said, then took a deep breath. “It’s 2000.”

He frowned. “What is?”

“The year.”

Ripper laughed. “Right, an’ I’m the Queen. Pull the other one.”

“No, it really is. Ethan… did something. Some spell, I don’t know what, but he… sort of accidentally- so he claims- duplicated a younger version of you. Not quite time travel, because he’s- probably- talking to original-slash-older you right now, and apparently not what he intended to do, either,” Buffy explained.

“So, I’m, what, some bloody magical clone?”

“As far as we can tell, yeah. Sorry.”

“And who are you, then? To me, I mean, older me,” Ripper asked, finding himself both worried and fascinated by the possible answers to that.

Buffy paused, looking reluctant to respond, but he motioned for her to get on with it. “...your Slayer,” she finally said.

“And now I _know_ you’re fucking with me, cause there’s not a damn thing that would make me go back to that lot.” He managed to sit up, finally, and dropped his feet onto the floor, but didn’t stand yet. “So are you going to tell me the truth sometime, or shall I continue going along with whatever idiotic game Ethan’s playing?”

“No game, seriously,” Buffy replied. “You went back to Watcher training… probably sometime around the late 70s? I mean, you don’t really talk about your past much, so I’m not sure.”

“An’ why the _bloody_ hell would I do that?”

Buffy dropped her eyes, clearly uncomfortable or unhappy to be telling him this. “A friend of yours…um, he died. There was a demon, Eyghon?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ripper hissed. He covered his face with his hands, rubbing briefly before adding, “I knew that was a bad idea. Or I should’ve, at least.”

Buffy touched his shoulder gently, but didn’t say anything, just offering what comfort she could.

“Who was it, then? Not Ethan, obviously, or Deirdre, since you said he.” Ripper glanced up at her, leaning a little bit into the hand on his shoulder. If she was telling the truth, his life was- he didn’t want to think about where his life was, really.

Buffy paused, as if she wanted to say something else, before answering, “Randall. But- I’m really, really sorry, but he’s not the only one who’s dead now. The others are too, except for Ethan. They died a couple years ago, Eyghon came after them. It’s the only reason I know any of this.”

He nodded, uncertain he’d be able to speak. He’d just _seen_ them, they were- they _had been_ \- perfectly fine. And now all of them were- might be- probably were- he couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t imagine how this could have happened to him. It had to be a trick, but it couldn’t be, because Ethan wouldn’t do this to him (Ethan _knew better_ than to do this to him, Ethan knew- was the only one who knew- what he’d been through), but he couldn’t be certain Ethan was involved at all. Maybe someone else- but he didn’t know of anyone who’d do something so vicious to him. Even the Council and their selfish incompetence wouldn’t stoop this low, not over him.

“Where’s Ethan?” he whispered, trying not to wince at the way his voice cracked with pain.

“Talking to other-you. Hopefully he’s bothered to mention where he left you, so they’ll come here.”

“If- if you’re telling the truth-” he paused, swallowing heavily and trying to calm down enough to get the words out. “If you’re telling the truth, Ethan’s all I’ve got right now. So if you’d get him here, that’d be-”

Buffy visibly winced at the idea that Ethan was all he had, but nodded. “I’ll call, but they might be on their way already.”

“Wait. You don’t seem… okay with the idea of Ethan being all I’ve got left. Why?”

“You guys… don’t really get along,” she replied.

He turned to stare at her fully, now absolutely certain that either she was lying or things had changed in deeply inexplicable ways in the intervening years. “Now I bloody know you’re making shit up. Why in the hell wouldn’t I get along with _my_ Ethan? He’s _Ethan_.”

She paused, looking baffled. “ _Your_ Ethan?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes, _my Ethan_. D’you have a bloody problem with that?” he growled.

She paused again, then said quietly, “Oh. Like, y’know, _yours_. No, no problem, I just. Didn’t know you two were. You know.”

He raised his eyebrows, sitting back against the back of the couch. “Right, at this point, there’s no way you’re lying. No one could see how Ethan and I look at each other and not get it, so the only explanations are that you _haven’t_ , or that things really have changed that much. Wish I knew how.”

A knock at the door interrupted his musing on how his life could have changed as much as Buffy said it had, and he tried to stand briefly before Buffy pinned him to the couch with one hand. _Well, she’s certainly a Slayer, then, _he thought.__

__“Stay here. That should be Ethan and… you. God, this is gonna get confusing.”_ _

__“Betting he doesn’t still go by Ripper, so you could call him whatever you call him, and call me that,” Ripper pointed out with a slight grin._ _

__“Okay… Ripper. Stay there, I’ll be right back.”_ _

__She opened the door to find Giles holding Ethan’s upper arm quite firmly, and both of them looking angry and a little wrung out- like they had been arguing, and it got a bit more emotional than they’d meant to- but not like they’d fought at all, which surprised her. Behind them were Willow and Xander, both cringing a little._ _

__Buffy stepped back to let them in, and Willow whispered to her, “They were shouting when we got there. Giles looked like he was either going to cry or tear Ethan’s head off.”_ _

__Buffy frowned, realizing that there was a lot she didn’t know about her Watcher’s relationship with Ethan Rayne. She turned back to the couch to see Ripper staring at Ethan like… well, like someone in love, though the fierce adoration on his face was tempered by pain and confusion._ _

__“You didn’t mean to do this?” Ripper whispered._ _

__Ethan shook his head, trying to shrug out of Giles’ grip and failing. He shot Giles an annoyed look, and said, “I had meant to deage him, actually. Keep his memories, mind, but take him back to his prime. Relatedly, bloody hell, I thought I remembered how you looked, but apparently my brain was protecting itself with understatement on that one. I may need to sit down.”_ _

__Ripper laughed, and even Giles smirked a little as he let go of Ethan’s arm. “You’ll have to fix this, you know,” Giles pointed out._ _

__“Yes, and how exactly do I do that, Rupert? _Really_?” Ethan replied. “It’s not as though there’s somewhere to send him back to- he’s a new entity in his own right, not some time traveller or whatever. He can’t go back to the last moment he remembers, because there’s already one of you there.”_ _

__“Yes, and now there’s _two_ of me here, and I’d prefer there weren’t,” Giles snapped._ _

__“Giles,” Buffy interrupted, “I hate to say this, but Ethan has a point. This… clone, he’s a person. Just like the rest of us, except maybe a little weirder.” Ripper snorted, but didn’t comment. “He’s lost everyone he cares about, all at once, and the only person he has left is _Ethan Rayne_. He’s not equipped to cope with the modern world- he just stepped out of the _seventies_ \- and the only options for him being not here are send him off alone, or send him off with Ethan. I don’t like either of those.”_ _

__“With Ethan,” Ripper said firmly, “or not at all.”_ _

__Giles growled in frustration. “You haven’t the slightest clue how he’s changed in the past twenty years, you _idiot_ , and you’ve never seen him clearly as it is!”_ _

__Ripper stood up suddenly, stepping towards Giles. “At least I don’t treat him like scum! What _happened_ to you, you vicious bastard, you _know_ he needs you!”_ _

__Giles mouth opened and closed a few times, his face darkened with rage, before he turned and headed back out the still open front door, closing it behind him with unnecessary force._ _

__Ethan watched the argument from where he sat, perched on the edge of the coffee table, finally hitting the point of being too overwhelmed to keep his emotions off his face. “Ripper…” he murmured. “You didn’t have to-”_ _

__Ripper leaned down and kissed him firmly. “You may have changed, I don’t bloody well care, no one gets to treat you like that. No matter what. Not even me.”_ _

__Ethan pulled away a little, though he still had a hand tangled in Ripper’s shirt. “You have no idea, Ripper. I’m not- we’re not kids anymore, and I don’t think I can pretend with you, no matter how badly I want to.”_ _

__Ripper stared at him, swallowing reflexively before pulling away further, his shirt slipping from Ethan’s hand as he did. “So, what, I’m not- not good enough? It’s the original or nothing, is it?” he snapped, his voice cracking._ _

__“It isn’t like that Ripper, there’s just- too much history. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us.”_ _

__“I _don’t care_!” Ripper shouted. He sat heavily on the couch, dropping his head into his hands, and whispered, “You’re all I’ve got. I can’t lose you too.”_ _

__Ethan reached out, stopping himself just short of touching Ripper before dropping his hand. “I know. But I can’t- Ripper, it wouldn’t work out. It couldn’t. And ruining us all over again- I just _can’t_.”_ _

__Ripper looked up at him, just barely, to glare. “ _Fine._ Do whatever you want, you selfish bastard,” he snarled. “Go have fun trying to get affection out of mister head-up-his-arse out there.” He stood, pausing as he realized he wasn’t sure where to storm off to, as the front porch was probably taken still._ _

__Buffy watched all of this, taking in the new knowledge about her Watcher, and also coming to the realization that this younger Giles was in desperate need of someone he could rely on. She motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen before the tension of his attempt to storm off had left his body._ _

__\-------------------------  
“You looked like you needed space,” she explained, once he’d settled himself against the counter. “And I don’t know about you, but after that much shouting, I usually need something to drink, so. Kitchen.”_ _

__He sagged against the counter, looking for all the world like a lost little boy. “Got beer?”_ _

__“No beer, sorry. Bad experience with it, long story. There was magic and cavemen, it was super unfun,” Buffy replied. “We’ve got-” she paused, opening the fridge, “-juice, water, and some sort of weird soda that I’m pretty sure is Xander’s fault. Wow, Mom needs to get to the store. It’s practically empty in here.”_ _

__Ripper chuckled at that, though the sound caught in his throat a little. “Water, then.”_ _

__“Here you go,” she said, handing him a glass of water with a slightly tentative smile. She waited as he drank half of it in one go, before adding, “Better?”_ _

__He snorted. “Physically, yeah. Everything else is still bloody terrible, of course, but if water fixed that, I’d either think you drugged it with something interesting, or contact the bloody pope about a miracle, depending.”_ _

__“I’d say it could be worse, but-”_ _

__“Buffy?” Willow asked from the doorway. “Everything alright?”_ _

__“We’re working on it. You guys can head home if you want,” she replied. Willow nodded, walking away._ _

__Ripper sighed. “At least you give a damn about how I’m doing. Not sure why, given what a prick your Watcher is, but it’s something.” He finished his water, sitting the glass on the counter behind him. “I’m bloody exhausted after all that. Don’t suppose you’ve got somewhere better than the couch for me to crash?”_ _

__“There’s a guest room upstairs,” Buffy replied. “Probably Mom won’t mind.”_ _

__“How old are you, anyway?” he asked with a frown, following her toward the stairs._ _

__“Nineteen. I go to college over at UC Sunnydale, but it’s the weekend, so I was planning to stay here after patrolling anyway.”_ _

__Ripper raised an eyebrow. “That brings up more questions than it answers.”_ _

__Buffy grinned. “Yeah, I guess it does. Here’s the short version- no one knew I was a potential slayer, I was called at fifteen, older-you became my Watcher after I moved here- long story- and has mostly encouraged me to hold on to as much normal life as I can. So, college.”_ _

__“And the patrolling?”_ _

__“Two words- active Hellmouth.”_ _

__Ripper swore, shaking his head. “Of course I end up on a bloody Hellmouth. I’m going to regret everything I’ve ever said about them, aren’t I?”_ _

__“Yup. One of you already does, trust me.”_ _

__“Well, at least my inevitable horrible demise will be interesting,” he muttered._ _


End file.
